


War

by Shaish, Stringlish



Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Canon Divergent, Drabble, Four Horsemen, Four Horsemen AU, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-14
Updated: 2015-12-14
Packaged: 2018-05-06 16:21:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,499
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5423777
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shaish/pseuds/Shaish, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stringlish/pseuds/Stringlish
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He waits, every time he can.</p>
            </blockquote>





	War

**Author's Note:**

> This, too, has been sitting in my docs for too long. Fjkdls. It's been like a year.  
> Inspired/brought on by this post; http://shaish.tumblr.com/post/102899858776/bckynats-the-four-horsemen-of-the-apocalypse

"He's coming."

"Man, you say that _every time_."

Steve sends Sam a _look_ and Sam just shrugs, smile still on his face. Steve huffs a breath, looking back out across the ruin.

It's some time past humanity's ' _Dark Ages_ '. Steve wasn't there for that, or for quite a bit of time after it, but he's been around long enough now to learn to read the way things generally work. 

Natasha's in the Middle East somewhere, he can feel the tendrils of _plague_ stretching across a seemingly endless but actually fairly short ocean, short if you've traversed it often enough and gotten used to the _waiting_ involved in what they do ( _he has, now_ ). It makes you patient, whether you like it or not. Sometimes things happen fast and quick, sometimes slow and steady. Natasha's plagues and illnesses are a steady, constant thing, much like herself, but sometimes she strikes hard and fast, too. 

Sam’s famine is similar in its’ steadfast way, but there's been a slow incline in the works over the centuries that started, Steve thinks, long before he or Bucky or Sam became what they are , before Sam, the newest of them, took over the position of famine. Steve’s both looking forward to and dreading the role he may end up playing in it, when it all comes to a head. People meddling with illness and life, turning it into a market. Much as Steve lives for war, he hates the consequences.

"You get like an excited retriever every time, I swear," Sam teases, drawing him out of his thoughts, and Steve can see his grin out of the corner of his eye, "He knows it, too."

Steve groans, resting his hands on his hips. "You told him," he half accuses in Sam’s direction, but keeping his eyes on the horizon.

Sam just shrugs, arms crossed over his chest and leaning against a wilting tree. "Didn’t have to. I may even be using his words." Steve rolls his eyes a little, letting his hands drop and standing up straighter when he feels it.

Bucky's here.

He starts out as a small, black blur on the horizon, and for a moment, Steve’s brow furrows.

As Bucky gets closer, Steve can see what was off. 

His hair is longer. There's silver gleaming in early evening sunlight all along his left arm, stretching and refracting as Bucky leans down every so often, letting war's consequences finally rest. That's not unfamiliar like the hair, Steve’s even missed seeing it, but there's also-

Steve frowns, taking a step forward. 

They don’t really change, not after becoming what they are. They're all still wearing what they have been since Steve met them. Steve’s still in his Captain America uniform, Sam is still in his Falcon uniform, Natasha is still in her black catsuit. 

Bucky's still in his own black uniform, cut at the left shoulder and chest covered in leather straps, but he's... _moving_ differently. 

Since they've become what they are, Bucky a little before Steve, Bucky normally moves slow and fast all at once/ It was jarring to see at first, like Steve’s mind couldn't process the movements, and maybe as a human he wouldn't be able to period, but he's not human anymore and he's used to seeing it. 

Now, Bucky is still moving equally slow and fast, a bare blur to his movements, but it's...quieter, somehow, more than it was before. Even the sense of _finality_ emanating from him is quieter now, more lethal, more like the scythe the myths say he carries and less like the gun he died with.

Steve didn’t think that was possible, them changing.

But Steve hasn’t seen him in 10 years. Their duties haven't had the chance to overlap again until now, but-

What's changed?

"Something wrong?" Sam asks.

"He looks different," Steve says, a little quieter. He sees Sam shift and stand up straight in his periphery, arms still crossed. 

"He does," Sam agrees, "Doesn't mean something's wrong, though." But he doesn't sound so sure, and Steve takes another step forward. 

Sam’s hand comes down on his shoulder, gripping firm but gentle. "Wait," he says, and Steve could throw him off, charge ahead like the _force_ he is now, but he waits, because he knows. 

It's beyond rude to go out and interrupt. The area was Sam's, then it _was_ his, but now it's Bucky's. It took Natasha _slamming_ him with the worst wave of sickness in _either_ of his lives for Steve to learn that. He doesn't think Bucky would be quite as hard on him, but he definitely wouldn't appreciate Steve messing things up, either. Only one occupies a territory at a time as they work. There can be no interference unless it’s called for. War does not belong on a finished battlefield of death.

-

It takes hours for Bucky to get within at least twenty feet of them, and some part of Steve still considers that a long time, but the rest of him is just focused on _Bucky_ , because he can see him better, now.

His left arm is still silver, but there’s a faded, scratched up red star on the shoulder, and his hair is long like Steve could already tell from a distance, where it's always been short since they were kids. But the _biggest_ change is his eyes-

They're-

"Bucky," Steve can't hold back anymore, takes another step forward, Sam's hand sliding off of his shoulder. 

But Bucky touches his metal fingers to the last few dieing before looking up at him, and a chill shoots straight down Steve’s spine, different from the one looking into Bucky's eyes usually causes, these days.

" _Buck_ ," Steve says softly.

Bucky stares at him for a long moment, eyes as blank as a dead man's before something finally flickers in the depths and the blue comes back a little more. "St-..." he cuts off, the rest a quiet hush of air as he drops to his knees, sinking slightly into the mud and dirt and blood from the weight of him.

Steve rushes over, getting down on his own knees in front of him and framing Bucky's face with his hands. " _Buck_ ," he says, stroking his thumbs gently under tired eyes, " _Bucky_."

"Steve," Bucky says on a worn sigh, swaying a little towards him, "I made it."

Steve’s brow furrows, shuffling a little closer. "What happened?"

"Asshole in Germany," he says, eyes half closing, " Wanted Death on a leash." He grins then, tired and mostly teeth and not really a grin at all. "Showed'im."

Steve frowns. "He- How- Nevermind," he decides, "Later. How do you feel? Are you okay?" He’s clearly _not_ , but Steve has to ask.

Bucky somehow manages to look at him like he’s stupid even though he looks on the verge of sleep, which they don’t _need_ -

"M'here, aren't I?" he asks, eyes looking around a little, fast and slow all at once, like the rest of him, and it takes Steve a moment to realize that it's a real question. 

"Yeah. Yeah, you're here," he reassures, and Bucky slumps forward a little more, eyes finding his again, "You're here with me."

Bucky lets out another sigh, letting his weight push him forward so his forehead rests between Steve’s neck and shoulder. "Good," he lets out on a warm breath that ghosts across Steve’s neck, faintly smells like death, "Ten years haven't felt like ten years in...years," he finishes, almost a mumble, and Steve feels Bucky's face scrunch up against his skin. He lets out a quiet laugh, only slightly hysterical.

Steve wraps one of his arms around Bucky's back and cards fingers through his hair with the other.

"Do you know who did this to you?" Sam asks, and Steve’s a little ashamed that he forgot Sam was even there.

He feels Bucky's face scrunch up against his shoulder again for a moment, in thought. "Strucker?" Bucky asks. He lifts his head up for a minute to look left up at Sam. "Von Strucker?" Steve rubs a hand up his back and Bucky burrows his face back into Steve’s neck while Sam lets out a thoughtful hum.

"I'll ask Natasha," Sam decides, "I get the feeling I'll be running into her next," he half jokes. Pestilence and Famine usually go hand in hand, just like War and Death. It's almost a given.

Steve nods, pressing his lips to the side of Bucky's head. "You gonna be alright?" he asks quietly.

Bucky nods his head after a moment, shuffling a little closer. "M'gonna be fine now, Stevie. M' _home_ ," he mumbles, slowly wrapping arms around his waist.

Steve’s heart clenches a little and he holds Bucky a little closer, managing a smile into Bucky's hair. "Yeah. You're home."

Bucky lets out a long sigh into his neck and Steve grips him a little tighter, eyes shifting up towards the horizon over the top of Bucky's head, pupils shimmering red.

 _War_ is coming for _Von Strucker_.


End file.
